Dimensional Shift

Notes

What is termed in the Federation as the Elway theorem has long been known as a potentially advanced transporter system. The Starfleet Academy astrophysics course has two hours on the theorem, which has amongst its spinoffs the adaptive transport also known as subspace transition rebounding transport or the dimensional shift. The theorem eventually proved to be inaccurate and all research was abandoned by the mid 23rd century. However, the dimensional shift idea did indeed work successfully and was adopted by the Ansata terrorist movement on the planet Rutia IV. Unfortunately for the terrorists, the process is inimical to living tissue; genetic damage results from each use of the technology with a cumulative effect which is invariably fatal. The Ansata kept using the system despite this, since the transport is untraceable by any standard method of detection.

When the Ansata kidnapped Dr. Beverly Crusher, the Enterprise-D crew became involved in the fight against them. Each person using the transport wears an armband containing a subspace field coil and an isolated power source. Use of the system results in a slight nuclear vibration which allowed the Enterprise crew to speculate that the dimensional shift was being used. They were subsequently able to locate the terrorist headquarters using an adaptive subspace echogram to trace the dimensional shifts. A joint Starfleet / Rutian force attacked the headquarters and rescued the Federation prisoners, killing the leader of the terrorists in the process.1